Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-09-17
A 0 OF THE A
Philadelphia Press.

Inlldutlpnld IItSS'
When South Carolina seeded from
the Union and lit the fires of civil
war her Governor was Francis w.
Pickens, a member of the slave-hold-
ing aristocracy that boosted of its
blue blood, and like the feudal system
of which it was a modern simula-
crum, occasionally developed noble
and admirable types of men and wo-
men. To that rank Governor Pick
ems was entitled, and of all the low
able women to whom his family had
given birth, no one was sWeeter or
more beautiful than the daughter
who, when Major Anderson lowered
the flag on Sumpter, was budding in
to a charming womanhood. For
nineteen months, beginning with
June, 1868, Charleston suffered the
most prolonged and tremendous bonn
bardment ever inflicted upon an
American city.
All the lower part of the town was
swept by day and night by Gilmore's
300-pound shells and forsaken by its
population. The roar of the artillery
fire upon Fort Sumpter and the other
defensive works was we'll nigh inces-
SAINT, while the batteries upon Morris
Island for the possession of Fort
Wagner and Battery Gregg, the FIRE.
quent skirmishes between the recon
noitering boat parties, the engage
ments of the fleets and such torpedo
expeditions as that which blew up
the Federal gunboat Housatonic left
few %uneventful days in the history of
the long and bloody siege. The hos
pitfalls of the city OverfiOwed with
wounded men, the care of whom was
largely entrusted to an organization
of volunteer nurses, of which Miss
Pickens was a member.
To her charge fell i'm the autumn of
1864, Lieutenant Andre de Rochelle
of the First South Carolina Regiment
of Artillery, a command of which
Beauregard said that it had not its
superior in any army in the world.
1t had held Fort Sumpter during the
terrific fire that crumbled the great
stone walls into fragments and piece
of bursting shell had struck de Ro-
chelle down with what was seeming
ly a mortal wound.
He was removed to a hospital I'M
der the direction of Surgeon Jeffrey
of the Confederate service, and for
the many days in which he lay there
nearer death than conscious life, Miss
Pickens was his devoted attendant.
There had been no previous acquain-
lance between the beautiful nurse
and her gallant patient, and she had
merely gone to his bedside in the first
instance a she might have gone to
that of any other soldier; but he
owed his life to her unfiagging care,
and when he had passed the point of
danger gratitude was mingled with a
warmer sentiment. The by-play of
love ran on unchecked in the fierce
theatre of war, and they became
pledged to marry. They were of
equal social rank, Lieutenant de Ro-
chelle having a lineage that reached
the Huguenot settlement of the state.
The marriage was appointed for the
Christmas eve Of 1864, in the gloom
that then overshadowed the beleague-
red town. 1t was a sombre holiday
season for the people driven from
their shattered homes by the steady
rain of shot and shell, nearly eXhaust-
ed of the commonest necessaries of
life and shrouded in mourning for
lost members of every household.
The Pickens family mansion was
within the line Of fire from the Fed
eral batteries, and had months pre-
viously been abandoned. Miss Pick
ems had been received into the resi-
dence Of her relative, General Rhett,
which was supposed to be beyond the
range of their guns, and had so far
escaped being hit by any Of the mon
strous projectiles that flew into the
city. On Christmas eve the wedding
party were assembled in the parlor OF
the Rhett mansion, one of the large
and handsome houses so common on
all the river frontage of old Charles
ton. Divested of its costly decora-
tons that had gone to swell this or
that Confederate fund, the great room
looked barren, chilly and fOrbidding.
Candles were almost an unattainable
luxury then-the city gas works had
long been wrecked by exploding
shells-and some homemade device
of illumination only lit up the little
c,oon Ooounial Nv th, l,,., 49,. ! l.:1z